25 Animals That Are Larger Than You Realize

A shark program shows a great white shark swimming past scuba divers in cages. You’re in awe because, after all, it’s a great white shark! A lean, mean, carnivorous hunting machine! You know it’s big, huge even, but not until you see it in comparison to the poor little divers hiding away in their cages can you fully realize the mind-blowing size of this animal. In fact most of us are not really aware of how big some animals truly are. Not a clue! But not to worry, because today (right now) you are about to see animals that are larger than you realize!

The fact is animals come in many shapes and sizes. Some people use weight as the determiner for what they consider the biggest animals, so the heaviest are automatically the largest animals in their minds. Others consider the longest animals to be the biggest while others see “the biggest” in terms of height. At the end of the day, whichever way you measure size there’s no denying that some animals are absolutely HUGE. For example, it is considered common knowledge that the blue whale and the African elephant are the two largest animals on the planet (so naturally we had no choice but to include them on the following list). But what does that mean? What does that look like? How does that compare to things we already know are large like a football field, a building, or even a bus! After taking a better look at some of these animals, we think you’re going to have a better idea at some of their size (and the revelation may just shock you). These are 25 Animals That Are Larger Than You Realize.

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Last Updated on March 23, 2016

25

Great white shark

Source: Wikipedia, Image: Wikipedia

The great white shark is famous for its intimidating size, with mature individuals growing up to 6.4 m (21 ft) in length, while there have been reports of great white sharks measuring over 8 m (26 ft), about twice the height of an average truck.

24

Bottlenose dolphins

Source: Wikipedia

Cute, supersmart, and extremely friendly; the bottlenose dolphin is associated with a general feeling of amicability. The sight of them jumping out of the water and doing silly stunts is relatively common on TV and the internet and it is perhaps the reason why it’s so hard to visualize their impressive size. However, a bottlenose dolphin can range from 2 to 4 meters (6.6 to 13.1 ft) and can weigh anywhere between 150 to 650 kilograms (330 to 1,430 lb). If you swim next to these guys, they will be over twice your size (or more if you are a short person :).

23

Sperm whale

Source: Wikipedia, Image: Wikipedia

Sperm whales are considered to be the largest toothed whales in the world. Adult males grow to be about 50-60 feet (17-20 m) long and weigh about 40-50 tons (36-45 tonnes), which means that a Boeing 737-800 with a max take-off weight of 75 tons, couldn’t carry two of these beasts.

22

Hippopotamus

Source: Wikipedia, Image: Wikipedia

Hippos are rotund animals with the distinct title of being the third largest living land mammals, after elephants and white rhinos. They can grow anywhere between 10.8 to 16.5 feet (3.3 to 5 meters) long and weigh up to 3 tons. That’s roughly about the length and weight of a Hummer H2.

21

Lion

Source: Wikipedia, Image: Wikipedia

Widely known as the “king of the jungle” (don’t really know where this title came from since they’re normally found in grasslands and open woodlands), a mature male lion can exceed 250 kg (550 lb,) that’s about the weight of two men like Brock Lesnar.